1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel magnetic recorder and particularly to a sintered body useful as a magnetic head slider for said recorder and further relates to a method for making said sintered body, to a magnetic head for recording and reproduction wherein said sintered body is used as its slider, and to such a magnetic head slider.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the field of magnetic recording disks, there are needs for higher density recording of data and for quick and accurate reading-out of recorded data, since techniques of data processing have been advanced in recent years Therefore the method of using thin-film magnetic head sliders in the C.S.S. states is adopted extensively. The term "C.S.S." is an abbreviation of contact.start.stop, meaning the states of a head slider that, when the disk is at a stop, is rested on the disk and when the disk is under revolution, is kept floating by the air bearing effect so as not to be in contact with the disk.
The following describes the structure and operation of a magnetic disk device fitted for such a method.
Structure: A number (6-12) of magnetic disks are fitted each around a rotary shaft, while magnetic head sliders are fixed on head arms through gimbals in the form of plate springs for pressing the sliders against the disks. Each head arm is fixed on a carriage which is installed to move the sliders toward the rotary shaft. Two head sliders are fixed on each head arm, one of these sliders being pressed to contact with the lower side of the overlying disk and the other being pressed to contact with the upper side of the underlying disk, by the plate-spring action of the gimbals.
Operation: The operation is begun with starting the revolution of disks by driving the rotary shaft with a motor. Upon arrival at a definite revolution, the sliders pressed against the disk surfaces are detached therefrom by the air bearing effect. In this condition, the carriage is moved to carry the sliders to definite positions, and information is written in or read out by switching at or from a prescribed position on a definite disk. Thus the magnetic recorder performs its duty.
According to such a system as described above, the sliders, just after start of the disk revolution and just before stop of the disk revolution, slide (relatively to the disks) while colliding lightly with the disks (slide in a collision mode), as observed microscopically.
Up to now, a number of materials for magnetic heads have been proposed in documents, e.g. Japanese Patent Application Kokai (Laid-open) No. 55-163665, No. 59-96521, and No. 60-183709.
However, none of the hitherto proposed magnetic head materials are considered in relation to the above stated slide in a collision mode: there is the problem of short slide life in all the proposed head materials. When the slide life is short, information writing or reading becomes impossible in a short time and in addition stored information disappears simultaneously. Hence the reliability of products from such materials is remarkably low.
Regarding, on the other hand, magnetic head sliders which slide constantly as in the operation of magnetic tape recorders, materials hitherto proposed for sliders are not adequate to satisfy requirements with respect to abrasion resistance and some other performance characteristics.